Ruth Jonathan, Nigel Blake; Philosophy in Schools: a request for clarification, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 22, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 221–2.

Clarification requests, queries posed in response to a “problematic” (misheard, misunderstood, etc.) utterance, are a challenge to mainstream semantic theories because they call into question notions such as “shared content” or “the context.” Given their strong parallelism requirements, elliptical clarification requests introduce in addition significant complexities concerning the need for long-term maintenance of non-semantic information in context. In this paper, we consider a puzzle concerning the emergence of elliptical clarification requests in child English: Data (...) from the Belfast and Manchester corpora from CHILDES demonstrate that reprise fragments, the highest frequency clarification request construction among adults, emerges with significant delay in comparison with reprise sluices, bare wh-phrases used to request clarification. This is a puzzling finding a priori: first, since reprise fragments are by most plausible measures the most readily available clarification request form in that it involves mere repetition of material primed by the previous utterance and children have the ability to repeat parts of the previous utterance from the earliest stages of speech. Moreover, as we show, reprise fragments predominate—in some cases vastly so, over sluicing in the input of fragmentary clarification requests available to the child—and it would, therefore, be difficult to construct an explanation for order of emergence primarily based on frequency of the construction in the children's input. Our account is based on grammatical explication of the difference between the constructions, how constructional difference is represented in a hierarchy of constructions, and in terms of a notion of semantic complexity that suggests reprise sluicing is, in fact, less complex than reprise fragments. (shrink)

It furthers the dialectic when the opponent is clear about what motivates and underlies her critical stance, even if she does not adopt an opposite standpoint, but merely doubts the proponent’s opinion. Thus, there is some kind of burden of criticism. In some situations, there should an obligation for the opponent to offer explanatory counterconsiderations, if requested, whereas in others, there is no real dialectical obligation, but a mere responsibility for the opponent to cooperate by providing her motivations for being (...) critical. In this paper, it will be shown how a set of dialogue rules may encourage an opponent, in this latter type of situation, to provide her counterconsiderations, and to do so at an appropriate level of specificity. Special attention will be paid to the desired level of specificity. For example, the critic may challenge a thesis by saying “Why? Says who?,” without conveying whether she could be convinced by an argument from expert opinion, or from position to know, or from popular opinion. What are fair dialogue rules for dealing with less than fully specific criticism? (shrink)

We are encouraged that the majority of commentators endorse our evolutionary framework for studying culture, and several suggest extensions. Here we clarify our position, dwelling on misunderstandings and requests for exposition. We reiterate that using evolutionary biology as a model for unifying the social sciences within a single synthetic framework can stimulate a more progressive and rigorous science of culture. (Published Online November 9 2006).

In this paper, we investigate distinctive utterances in non-task-oriented conversational dialogue through the comparison between task-oriented dialogue and non-task-oriented conversational dialogue. We then found that Indirect Responses and Clarification Requests are significant in non-task-oriented conversational dialogue. IRs are cooperative responses to other's question, while CRs are clarification questions. We analyzed the rhetorical relations about IRs and CRs. We then found that the IRs are generated by evidence and causal relations, while the CRs are generated by elaboration relation (...) and causal relations. (shrink)

Feedback such as backchannels and clarification requests often occurs subsententially, demonstrating the incremental nature of grounding in dialogue. However, although such feedback can occur at any point within an utterance, it typically does not do so, tending to occur at Feedback Relevance Spaces. We present a corpus study of acknowledgements and clarification requests in British English, and describe how our low-level, semantic processing model in Dynamic Syntax accounts for this feedback. The model trivially accounts for the (...) 85% of cases where feedback occurs at FRSs, but we also describe how it can be integrated or interpreted at non-FRSs using the predictive, incremental and interactive nature of the formalism. This model shows how feedback serves to continually realign processing contexts and thus manage the characteristic divergence and convergence that is key to moving dialogue forward. (shrink)

Children often refer to things ambiguously but learn not to from responding to clarification requests. We review and explore this learning process here. In Study 1, eighty-four 2- and 4-year-olds were tested for their ability to request stickers from either (a) a small array with one dissimilar distracter or (b) a large array containing similar distracters. When children made ambiguous requests, they received either general feedback or specific questions about which of two options they wanted. With training, (...) children learned to produce more complex object descriptions and did so faster in the specific feedback condition. They also tended to provide more information when requesting stickers from large arrays. In Study 2, we varied only distracter similarity during training and then varied array size in a generalization test. Children found it harder to learn in this case. In the generalization test, 4-year-olds were more likely to provide information (a) when it was needed because distracters were similar to the target and (b) when the array size was greater (regardless of need for information). We discuss how clear cues to potential ambiguity are needed for children to learn to tailor their referring expression to context and how several cues of heuristic value (e.g., more distracters > say more) can promote the efficiency of communication while language is developing. Finally, we consider whether it would be worthwhile drawing on the human learning process when developing algorithms for the production of referring expressions. (shrink)

In today’s schools, reading in an L2 is a very challenging task, and it is impossible to ignore the role of feedback in optimizing reading achievement. The present study was an attempt to investigate the type of both positive and corrective feedback moves utilized by L2 teachers in L2 reading comprehension classes. The study concentrated on six different kinds of corrective feedback, namely, explicit correction, recast, clarification request, metalinguistic feedback, elicitation, and repetition, as well as four positive feedback techniques: (...) acknowledgment, acceptance, rephrasing, and repetition. To this end, 40 participants were selected from a total population of 52 female EFL learners, aged 20-25, from an English language institute in Iran. In order to ensure the homogeneous entry behavior of the participants in terms of proficiency, the Oxford Placement Test , with reasonable measures of validity and reliability, was used to screen the students. All that happened in reading comprehension classes were audio recorded, transcribed, coded, and analyzed. To ensure about the consistency of the researchers in coding the data, the inter-coder reliability was run using Cronbach’s Alpha. Statistical analysis of the results revealed that repetition was the most frequently provided positive feedback by L2 teachers , followed by rephrasing . Regarding corrective feedback, explicit correction was the most frequent feedback technique and elicitation the second one utilized by L2 teachers . The results of Chi-square test showed that there was a significant difference among the frequencies of the feedback types. Hopefully the findings of this research study would help L2 teachers to have a more profound understanding of what goes on in their classes. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate the effect of level of understanding revealed by feedback in the form of clarification requests from a route follower on a route giver’s spatial perspective choice in their response in route instruction dialogues. In an experiment varying the level of understanding displayed by route follower clarification requests (the independent variable), route giver perspective switching in response to this feedback is investigated. Three levels of understanding displayed by feedback are investigated: (1) low-level (...) clarification requests indicating that the instruction was not processed, (2) semantic-level clarification requests indicating that the spatial direction given in the instruction could not be resolved as the speaker of the clarification request could not interpret which perspective was intended, and (3) high-level feedback which indicates that the route giver’s instruction was understood but which note an obstacle to following the instruction. Results show that perspective choice, which is a conceptual feature of language use, is sensitive to perceived level of addressee understanding. We found that route givers consistently switch perspectives in responding to semantic-level clarification requests but not in response to low-level ones, and also that switching occurs more for high-level feedback than for low-level feedback. We address how dialogue systems can take advantage of these findings by modelling our results in an Information State model of dialogue, presenting update rules for response generation which account for our findings and also update rules which enable generation of the feedback themselves. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate the effect of level of understanding revealed by feedback in the form of clarification requests from a route follower on a route giver’s spatial perspective choice in their response in route instruction dialogues. In an experiment varying the level of understanding displayed by route follower clarification requests, route giver perspective switching in response to this feedback is investigated. Three levels of understanding displayed by feedback are investigated: low-level clarification requests (...) indicating that the instruction was not processed, semantic-level clarification requests indicating that the spatial direction given in the instruction could not be resolved as the speaker of the clarification request could not interpret which perspective was intended, and high-level feedback which indicates that the route giver’s instruction was understood but which note an obstacle to following the instruction. Results show that perspective choice, which is a conceptual feature of language use, is sensitive to perceived level of addressee understanding. We found that route givers consistently switch perspectives in responding to semantic-level clarification requests but not in response to low-level ones, and also that switching occurs more for high-level feedback than for low-level feedback. We address how dialogue systems can take advantage of these findings by modelling our results in an Information State model of dialogue, presenting update rules for response generation which account for our findings and also update rules which enable generation of the feedback themselves. (shrink)

BackgroundMany studies have been published about ethics committees and the clarifications requested about the submitted applications. In Finland, ethics committees require a separate statement on ethical aspects of the research in applications to the ethics committee. However, little is known about how researchers consider the ethical aspects of their own studies.MethodsThe data were collected from all the applications received by the official regional ethics committee in the Hospital District of Northern Savo during 2004–2009 (n = 688). These included a total (...) of 56 studies involving research on tissue other than blood. The statements by the researchers about the ethics about their own research in these applications were analyzed by thematic content analysis under the following themes: recruitment, informed consent, risks and benefits, confidentiality and societal meaning.ResultsThe researchers tended to describe recruitment and informed consent process very briefly. Usually these descriptions simply stated who the recruiter was and that written consent would be required. There was little information provided on the recruitment situation and on how the study recruiters would be informed. Although most of the studies were clinical, the possibility was hardly ever discussed that patients could fail to distinguish between care and research.ConclusionThe written guidelines, available on the webpages of the ethics committee, do not seem to be enough to help researchers achieve this goal. In addition to detailed guidelines for researchers, investigators need to be taught to appreciate the ethical aspects in their own studies. (shrink)

In Italy, consent for health treatment, aside from being an ethical and deontological obligation, constitutes an essential requirement for any medical treatment according to articles 13 and 32 of the National Constitution and also in accordance with the Council of Europe's ‘Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine’. An essential requirement for the validity of consent is that clear, exhaustive and adequate information be provided to the patient himself: the practice of informed consent is a communicative relationship in which the patient (...) can express doubts, perplexities and clarification requests to the dentist. Furthermore, dental treatment has specific peculiarities: the relationship between dentistry and aesthetics, the concomitant presence of pathologies requiring different treatments, the elongated care process and the establishment of a trustworthy relationship and familiarity with the patient represent important aspects in the configuration of the dentist-patient relationship and in the process of acquiring informed consent. The dentist must offer correct information on diagnosis, prognosis, the therapeutic perspective and the likely consequences of therapy, alternative therapy and refusal of therapy, as well as eventual commitments for the period after treatment. Particular consideration must be given to minors and patients of unsound mind: the dentist's approach to these patients needs to be clear and appropriate to the person's age and understanding ability, even if the decisional power for sanitary treatment may be in the hands of a third person. (shrink)

A key requirement for the automatic generation of argumentative or explanatory text is to present the constituent propositions in an order that readers will find coherent and natural, to increase the likelihood that they will understand and accept the author’s claims. Natural language generation systems have standardly employed a repertoire of coherence relations such as those defined by Mann and Thompson’s Rhetorical Structure Theory. This paper models the generation of persuasive monologue as the outcome of an “inner dialogue”, where the (...) author attempts to anticipate potential challenges or clarification requests. It is argued that certain RST relations such as Motivate, Evidence and Concession can be seen to emerge from various pre-empting strategies. (shrink)

Healey et al. use experiments with chat dialogues to test the hypothesis that language co‐ordination is driven by ‘running repairs’. They replace signals of understanding such as “okay” with weaker, ‘spoof’ signals like “ummm”, and replace specific requests for clarification like “on the left?” with signals that suggest a higher degree of misunderstanding like “what?”. The latter manipulation causes participants to switch rapidly to more abstract forms of referring expression.

There is a famous puzzle in Rorty scholarship: Did or did Rorty not subscribe to a form of realism and truth when he made concessions regarding objectivity to Bjørn Ramberg in 2000? Relatedly, why did Rorty agree with Ramberg but nevertheless insist upon disagreeing with Brandom, though large parts of the research community hold their two respective requests for shifts in Rorty’s stance to be congruous? The present article takes up the discussion and tries, for the first time, to (...) make sense of Rorty’s insistence that there is a difference between Brandom’s notion of “made true by facts” and Ramberg’s notion of “getting things right” by showing that Ramberg’s appropriateness-conditions are fully compatible with Rorty’s revised interpretation of Davidson’s concept of “triangulation,” whereas Brandom’s inferential “made-true-by-facts”-language game is not. The reason why Rorty agrees with Ramberg but not with Brandom, I argue, is that Brandom’s contemporary concept of objectivity, as developed in his contribution to the debate and in his Making It Explicit, works with a scheme-content distinction, whereas Ramberg’s Davidson-based version does not. As many of his critics suppose, Rorty’s concession to Ramberg entails a substantive revision of Rorty’s position, not just a clarification. However, this new position is not in conflict with Rorty’s most important commitment, namely his anti-authoritarianism. The revised account still does not bind him to the forms of realism and truth that his critics favor. The article explains to which forms of realism and truth Rorty’s concessions to Ramberg commit him instead. (shrink)

Background: Due to recent legislations on euthanasia and its current practice in the Netherlands and Belgium, issues of end-of-life medicine have become very vital in many European countries. In 2002, the Ethics Working Group of the German Association for Palliative Medicine (DGP) has conducted a survey among its physician members in order to evaluate their attitudes towards different end-of-life medical practices, such as euthanasia (EUT), physician-assisted suicide (PAS), and terminal sedation (TS). Methods: An anonymous questionnaire was sent to the 411 (...) DGP physicians, consisting of 14 multiple choice questions on positions that might be adopted in different hypothetical scenarios on situations of “intolerable suffering” in end-of-life care. For the sake of clarification, several definitions and legal judgements of different terms used in the German debate on premature termination of life were included. For statistical analysis t-tests and Pearson-correlations were used. Results: The response rate was 61% (n=251). The proportions of the respondents who were opposed to legalizing different forms of premature termination of life were: 90% opposed to EUT, 75% to PAS, 94% to PAS for psychiatric patients. Terminal sedation was accepted by 94% of the members. The main decisional bases drawn on for the answers were personal ethical values, professional experience with palliative care, knowledge of alternative approaches, knowledge of ethical guidelines and of the national legal frame. Conclusions: In sharp contrast to similar surveys conducted in other countries, only a minority of 9.6% of the DGP physicians supported the legalization of EUT. The misuse of medical knowledge for inhumane killing in the Nazi period did not play a relevant role for the respondents’ negative attitude towards EUT. Palliative care needs to be stronger established and promoted within the German health care system in order to improve the quality of end-of-life situations which subsequently is expected to lead to decreasing requests for EUT by terminally ill patients. (shrink)

We address concerns raised by Maul (2012) regarding the validity of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT). We respond to requests for clarifications of our model, and explain why the MSCEIT’s scoring methods stand up to scrutiny and why many reported reliabilities of the MSCEIT may be underestimates, using reanalyses of the test’s standardization sample of N = 5,000 to illustrate our point. We also organize findings from four recent articles that provide evidence for the MSCEIT’s validity based on (...) its relations with other tests. (shrink)

‘IB was one of the great affirmers of our time.’ John Banville, New York Review of Books The title of this final volume of Isaiah Berlin’s letters is echoed by John Banville’s verdict in his review of its predecessor, Building: Letters 1960–75, which saw Berlin publish some of his most important work, and create, in Oxford’s Wolfson College, an institutional and architectural legacy. In the period covered by this new volume (1975–97) he consolidates his intellectual legacy with a series of (...) essay collections. These generate many requests for clarification from his readers, and stimulate him to reaffirm and sometimes refine his ideas, throwing substantive new light on his thought as he grapples with human issues of enduring importance. Berlin’s comments on world affairs, especially the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and the collapse of Communism, are characteristically acute. This is also the era of the Northern Ireland Troubles, the Iranian revolution, the rise of Solidarity in Poland, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, and wars in the Falkland Islands, the Persian Gulf and the Balkans. Berlin scrutinises the leading politicians of the day, including Reagan, Thatcher and Gorbachev, and draws illuminating sketches of public figures, notably contrasting the personas of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrey Sakharov. He declines a peerage, is awarded the Agnelli Prize for ethics, campaigns against philistine architecture in London and Jerusalem, helps run the National Gallery and Covent Garden, and talks at length to his biographer. He reflects on the ideas for which he is famous – especially liberty and pluralism – and there is a generous leavening of the conversational brilliance for which he is also renowned, as he corresponds with friends about politics, the academic world, music and musicians, art and artists, and writers and their work, always displaying a Shakespearean fascination with the variety of humankind. Affirming is the crowning achievement both of Berlin’s epistolary life and of the widely acclaimed edition of his letters whose first volume appeared in 2004. (shrink)

A Second level Master in “Clinical Bioethics Consultation” has been organized in Italy to offer an opportunity to offer an adequate training to carry out an ethics consultation in different health fields. The master has been promoted and realized by different institutions: Catholic University of Sacred Hearth in Rome, Insubria University in Varese, “Federico II” University in Naples, Lanza Foundation in Padua and the Local Health and Social Care Unit n.7 in Veneto Region. The aim of the master is train (...) ethics consultants to offer help regarding a correct decision, which will take by others. The choice must be as much as possible shared between patient, family and health care team. Ethics consultation can be primarily request by the physicians, nurses and health care staff such as support about a choice that wants to be the most appropriate and to clarify a dilemma between different options. Secondly an ethics consultation can be demand by the patient and the family members to find a clarification about their dilemmas and future choices. Also the administrative staff could ask the consultation, when it need to better explain ad example about a specific clinical case or a question concerned the health policy. (shrink)

Canada’s Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans mandates that all research involving human subjects be reviewed and approved by a research ethics board . We have little evidence on how researchers are dealing with this requirement in multisite studies, which involve more than one REB. We retrospectively examined 22 REB submissions for two minimal-risk, multisite studies in leading Canadian institutions. Most REBs granted expedited review to the studies, while one declared the application to be exempt from review. (...) Time between submission and approval ranged greatly, from four to 546 days. We received a total of 155 REB queries for changes and clarifications, most of which asked for further information, clarification, or additional documents. Less than a third of the REB queries were requests for specific changes, and a vast majority had a very limited impact on the research projects. Institutions also varied broadly in their description of what was required of local principal investigators. We conclude that the organizational and practical challenges these results imply could deter researchers from embarking on multisite research projects, and that recently proposed changes to the TCPS will not solve these problems. (shrink)

BackgroundThis paper highlights the issues that one of the 90 Italian Research Ethics Committees (RECs) might encounter during the approval phase of a clinical trial to identify corrective and preventive actions for promoting a more efficient review process and ensuring review quality. Publications on the subject from Italy and the rest of Europe are limited; encouraging constructive debate can improve RECs’ service to the subject of the clinical trial.MethodsWe retrospectively reviewed a cohort of 822 clinical trial protocols, initially reviewed by (...) REC, from June 2014 to December 2018. Data collected for each protocol were type of trial, sample size, use of placebo, number and kind of revisions requested by the REC before approval, and time taken for approval. Data for each protocol were collected by a trained clinical research assistant using the REC’s files and electronic archives.ResultsAlmost 45% of the reviewed studies (374/822) required clarifications, significant changes to the documentation, or minor changes before final approval.ConclusionsPreventive measures are needed to reduce the number of requested corrections and thus also the time required for approval, while maintaining review quality. All critical points and proposals presented in this paper require harmonization through updates to European regulations, as regulatory harmonization produces better compliance with rules and reduces the number of changes required before the trials’ final approval. Such updates include the development of standardized formats for informed consent, the verification of any evidence in favor of using off-label treatments over placebo as comparators, using multidisciplinary staff in clinical trials with children and adolescents, improving the legal definition of RECs to assign responsibilities and ensure independence, and providing guidance for RECs to engage clinical research assistants in internal audits. (shrink)

BACKGROUND: There is relatively little research concerning the processes whereby Local Research Ethics Committees discharge their responsibilities towards society, potential participants and investigators. OBJECTIVES: To examine the criteria used by LRECs in arriving at their decisions concerning approval of research protocols through an analysis of letters sent to investigators. DESIGN: Four LRECs each provided copies of 50 letters sent to investigators after their submitted proposals had been considered by the committees. These letters were subjected to a content analysis, in which (...) specific comments and requests for additional information and changes in the protocols were recorded and compared. FINDINGS: Overall 24% of proposals were approved without request for changes or clarifications, but this varied by committee: one committee approved only 6% of proposals without change or clarification while the others ranged from 26% to 32%. The content analyses of responses indicated that they could be placed into four categories: (i) further information for the committee to aid in their deliberations; (ii) requests for changes to the design or justification for the design used; (iii) changes to the information sheets provided to potential participants; and (iv) changes to consent procedures. Of these, alterations to information sheets were the most common type of request. These four types of response could be seen as safeguarding the wellbeing of potential participants (the principle of non-maleficence), of promoting the scientific validity of the research (the principle of beneficence), and of enhancing the rights of potential participants (the principle of autonomy). CONCLUSIONS: The committees were consistent in the types of requests they made of investigators, which can be seen as attempts to protect participants' rights and ensure the scientific validity of studies. Without an analysis of the proposals sent to the committees, however, it is difficult to account for the variation in the requirements set by the committees before approval was given. (shrink)

Since its introduction in 1964, the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki—Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects has enshrined the importance of safeguarding the well-being of human subjects in clinical research. The Declaration has undergone seven revisions, often in response to requests for clarification. I want to argue that the Declaration is in need of another revision in light of recent discoveries in placebo research.

In this comment I express my puzzlement about Burrell’s employment of “the distinction,” and request further clarification. I also discuss at some length his views concerning free will. I explain the libertarian view as I understand it and point out why his criticisms of it do not succeed. I sketch out his own view of created freedom, and raise certain questions concerning that view.

A recent review of research on ‘School Engagement’ calls for clarification of the concept of engagement due to its potential for addressing problems of student apathy and low achievement. This paper responds to the request for clarification, points out some ‘distinctions’ and ‘connexions’ between engagement and some polarizing issues in the literature of philosophy of education, and cautions educators about ignoring the ‘educational’ aspects of engagement.

A decision delay can translate into significant financial and business losses. One way to accelerate the decision process is through improved communication among the stakeholders engaged in the project. Capturing, transferring, managing, and reusing data, information, and knowledge in the context it is generated can lead to higher productivity, effective communication, reduced number of requests for clarification, and a shorter time-to-market cycle. We formalized the concept of reflection in interaction during communicative events among multiple project stakeholders. This concept (...) extends Donald Schon’s theory of reflection in action of a single practitioner. We model the observed reflection in interaction with a prototype system called TalkingPaperTM. It is a ubiquitous client-server collaborative environment that facilitates knowledge capture, sharing, and reuse during synchronous and asynchronous communicative events. TalkingPaperTM bridges the paper and digital worlds. It transforms the analog verbal discours, annotated paper corporate documents, and the paper and pencil sketches into indexed and synchronized digital content that is published on and streamed on-demand from a TalkingPaperTM web server. The TalkingPaperTM sessions can be accessed by all stakeholders for rapid knowledge sharing and decision-making. (shrink)

German legislation demands that decisions about the treatment of mentally incompetent patients require an ‘informed consent’. If this was not given by the patient him-/herself before he/she became incompetent, it has to be sought by the physician from a guardian, who has to be formally legitimized before. Additionally this surrogate has to seek the permission of a Court of Guardianship (Vormundschaftsgericht), if he/she intends to consent to interventions, which pose significant risks to the health or the life of the person (...) under his/her care. This includes ‘end-of-life decisions’. Deviations from this procedure are only allowed in acute emergencies or cases of ‘medical futility’. On the basis of epidemiological and demographical data it can be shown that the vast majority of surrogate decisions on incompetent patients in Germany is not covered by legally valid consent. Moreover, the data suggests that if consent were to be requested according to the legal regulations, both the legal and medical system could realistically never cope with the practical consequences of this. Additionally, empiric research has revealed serious deficits concerning medical ‘end of life-decisions’ and practical performance in palliative care. As a consequence a multidisciplinary discussion has developed in Germany about the reform of present legislation with respect to key-issues like• the assessment of mental competence• the options for exercising patient self-determination via advance directives and durable powers of attorney• the improvement of palliative care facilities,• the clarification of formal procedures for surrogate decision-making in health care and towards the end of life• and the possibilities and their limitations of controlling these decision-making processes ‘externally’ (e.g., by Guardianship Courts or committees).The authors discuss those proposals, which clearly dominate the present debate: They all aim to comply with the scientific basis of German law, jurisdiction and the European traditions of philosophy of health care and bioethics. (shrink)

In the following précis, I provide a summary of Interdisciplinary Foundations for the Science of Emotion. Much of what I say can be found in the “About the “Book” section of my book, although I provide some elaborations here. My summary focuses primarily on the central aim of the book, and the general strategy that I take in order to achieve my aim. What I present is a proposal for an interdisciplinary science of emotion. That proposal goes by the name (...) of meta-semantic pluralisme, and a central principle of this proposal is what I refer to as the α-ωe principle. My summary includes chapter summaries, which provides not only a more detailed account of my general strategy, but also a summary of the fruitfulness of this first principle for interdisciplinary research and theorizing in the science of emotion, including the work it can do in the areas of metaphysics, language, consciousness, intentionality, rationality, and epistemology. Finally, one should note that some of the contents of this précis should also provide a response to at least some of the commentators’ requests for clarification, and I address the concerns not covered in this précis in my subsequent replies. (shrink)

Background: Scientific research entails systematic investigation. Publishing the findings of research in peer reviewed journals implies a high level of confidence by the authors in the veracity of their interpretation. Therefore it stands to reason that researchers should be prepared to share their raw data with other researchers, so that others may enjoy the same level of confidence in the findings. Method: In a prospective study, 29 corresponding authors of original research articles in a medical journal (the British Medical Journal) (...) were contacted to ascertain their preparedness to share the data from their research. The email contact was in one of two forms, a general request and a specific request. The type of request a researcher received was randomly allocated. Findings: Researchers receiving specific requests for data were less likely, and slower, to respond than researchers receiving general requests. Only one researcher released data. Most researchers were reluctant to release their data. Some required further information, clarification, or authorship. Interpretation: The general reluctance of researchers to consider requests for their data is of concern. It raises questions about the level of confidence that should be placed on their interpretations of the data. It also highlights an unfortunate situation where researchers are more concerned with losing an advantage than advancing science. (shrink)

Jacques le fataliste et son maître,1 Diderot’s “novel that is not a novel,” has no beginning and multiple endings. The narrator lacks credibility, is dismissive or even rude to the reader, and actually strives to be boring. The flow of narration is interrupted no less than fifty-one times, often just so the narrator can relish his power to direct the story. The fictional reader, a character embedded in the narrative, asks no fewer than forty-seven questions, usually requesting clarification, sometimes (...) registering complaints. Entire sections of Jacques have been unceremoniously copied from Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. It was generally judged a critical failure: for a hundred years after Jacques’s.. (shrink)

Both as cardinal and as Pope Benedict XVI, one of Josef Ratzinger's consistent concerns has been the foundational moral imperatives of the natural law. In 2004, then Cardinal Ratzinger requested that the University of Notre Dame study the complex issues embedded in discussions about "natural rights" and "natural law" in the context of Catholic thinking. To that end, Alasdair MacIntyre provided a substantive essay on the foundational problem of moral disagreements concerning natural law, and eight scholars were invited to respond (...) to MacIntyre's essay, either by addressing his work directly or by amplifying his argument along other yet similar paths. The contributors to this volume are theologians, philosophers, civil and canon lawyers, and political scientists, who reflect on these issues from different disciplinary perspectives. Once the contributors' essays were completed, MacIntyre responded with a closing essay. Throughout the book, the contributors ask: Can a persuasive case for a foundational morality be made etsi Deus daretur? And, of course, persuasive to whom? The exchanges that take place between MacIntyre and his interlocutors result, not in answers, but in rigorous attempts at clarification. __Intractable Disputes about the Natural Law__ will interest ethicists, moral theologians, and students and scholars of moral philosophy. "Lawrence Cunningham has assembled an esteemed group of scholars to provide incisive analyses of the contemporary state of natural law theory, particularly in light of Alasdair MacIntyre's groundbreaking work. The essays are lucid, engaging, and intellectually sophisticated. __Intractable Disputes about the Natural Law_ _is a must-read not only for moral theologians, but for anyone concerned about the conceptual foundations of human rights, human dignity, and moral dialogue in pluralistic societies." --_Stephen J. Pope, Boston College_ "MacIntyre's first essay, on its own, would make this book an important scholarly contribution. But the ensuing contributions enable the book to flourish further, with contributions on subjects both readily associated with natural law and moral disagreement as well as those more creatively connected to the genesis of the text. Cunningham's volume both broadens and deepens contemporary thinking on a perennial topic, and will richly reward its readers." --_William C. Mattison III, The Catholic University of America_. (shrink)

BackgroundMultidisciplinary study groups have produced documents in an attempt to support decisions regarding whether to resuscitate "at risk" newborns or not. Moreover, there has been an increasingly insistent request for juridical regulation of neonatal resuscitation practices as well as for clarification of the role of parents in decisions regarding this kind of assistance. The crux of the matter is whether strict guidelines, reference standards based on the parameter of gestational age and authority rules are necessary.DiscussionThe Italian scenario reflects the (...) current animated debate, illustrating the difficulty intrinsic in rigid guidelines on the subject, especially when gestational age is taken as a reference parameter for the medical decision.SummaryConcerning the decision to interrupt or not to initiate resuscitation procedures on low gestational age newborns, physicians do not need rigid rules based on inflexible gestational age and birth weight guidelines. Guidance in addressing the difficult and trying issues associated with infants born at the margins of viability with a realistic assessment of the infant's clinical condition must be based on the infant's best interests, with clinicians and parents entering into what has been described as a "partnership of care". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 36.3 (2003) 207-222 [Access article in PDF] Burke Contra Kierkegaard:Kenneth Burke's Dialectic via Reading Søren Kierkegaard G. L. Ercolini Isaac—to his children Lived to tell the tale— Moral—with a Mastiff Manners may prevail. —Emily Dickinson Kenneth Burke employs the term dialectic throughout his works and yet, despite its profuse recurrence, the term remains ambiguous. Much secondary scholarship has focused on Burke and dialectics, and still the (...) term in Burke remains—if not already complicated—cloudy. 1 Part of the difficulty regarding this term stems from Burke's own ambiguity; another part from critics' tendency to rely on Burke's own use and definitions for clarification of this concept. The arguments have been helpful and illuminating, yet Burke's dialectic can be further clarified by going beyond what Burke means by the term by focusing on how he deploys dialectical criticism in his own work. 2 This article focuses on Burke's appropriation of the existential thinker Søren Kierkegaard as a particularly clear and remarkable instance of the operation of Burke's dialectic in his criticism. I maintain that although Burke's reading of Kierkegaard is arguably a misreading, his strategic appropriation of Kierkegaard in A Rhetoric of Motives (1950) not only serves as a clear deployment of the dialectic, but also functions as a foil against which Burke defines his own critical method. Burke's reading of Kierkegaard emphasizes the function of resolution in Burke's critical project.The current literature, although quite informative, does not put Burke's dialectic in sharp focus. Rueckert argues that Burkean dialectics "is really a branch of what Burke was to later call logology, the study of words, of language, of symbol systems" (1994, 14). Heath claims that dialectic "is an analytical tool to help us diagnose perspectives so that we can [End Page 207] examine whether they make sense and consider their implications for social relations" (1986, 162). Crusius contends that, "dialectic for Burke is the study of verbal universes, the disinterested pursuit of a vocabulary's implications" (1986, 24). While Brummett and Crusius show similarity between Hegel's and Burke's dialectic, Heath and Wess distinguish Burke's dialectic from Hegelian idealism and teleological history respectively. 3 Most of the arguments concerning Burke and dialectic focus on "The Dialectic of Constitutions" in A Grammar of Motives (1969), while A Rhetoric of Motives (1962), where Burke identifies humankind as homo dialecticus, is hardly engaged with regard to this concept. 4 Burke's working through Kierkegaard in A Rhetoric of Motives demonstrates Burke's dialectical criticism—thus providing an operational account of Burke's dialectic—and allows for his revelation of the three motives in the realm of rhetoric: the Order, the Secret, and the Kill. 5 And yet, despite this centrality of Fear and Trembling, surprisingly little has been said about Burke's Kierkegaard beyond passing mention. 6Despite editorial advice to the opposite regarding an article that would later become a part of the book, Burke evidently regarded his reading of Kierkegaard as important. Joseph Bennett, editor of Hudson Review, responded as follows to Burke's 1948 submission of the article entitled "Imagery of Killing": "I would like to request that you eliminate Kierkegaard from the article in question, confining it simply to literary exegesis and excluding the philosopher theologian." 7 Although he complied for the article, Burke retained his reading of Kierkegaard in A Rhetoric of Motives. Despite the lack of attention given to it, Burke's engagement with Kierkegaard clearly demonstrates how Burke views ethical criticism as that which resolves opposition, negation, and paradox to a higher order. Burke contra Kierkegaard The section entitled "Order" in A Rhetoric of Motives contains a detailed, twenty-three-page discussion of Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling. In this discussion, Burke primarily attacks Kierkegaard for encouraging what Burke enigmatically and elliptically identifies as the "cult of the Kill."Burke's portrayal of Kierkegaard is hardly flattering: at the crescendo of his analysis in A Rhetoric of Motives he claims that thinking such as Kierkegaard... (shrink)

The 1970-1971 revision of the Belgian constitution recognized the existence of three cultural communities and three geographic regions.The implementation of the constitutional provisions regarding cultural and regional autonomy led to the creation of several new subnational institutions of which the most important are the cultural and the regional Councils. Each cultural Council groups the senators and the representatives of similar linguistic group, while the regional Councils are composed of these same parliamentarians in accordance with their geographic residence. These Councils may (...) thus be seen as sub-groupings of the national Parliament.Although both are essentially advisory bodies, the cultural Councils do legislate decrees which, when enforced by the respective Ministers of Culture, have the force of law. On the other hand, the regional Councils are purely consultative assemblies, providing opinions and requesting clarifications and justifications of national decisions in the functional areas, specified by the Constitution. A ministerial committee of each region considers the Council's recommendations in enforcing national policies in the regions.The complexity of national-community-regional relations and the political discussions between the supporters of regionalization and those favoring culturalization shows the temporary nature of the present institutionalization. (shrink)

Belgium and the Netherlands are the first countries in the world that have legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide. Since September 23, 2002, Belgian physicians can perform an act of euthanasia without at the same time performing a criminal act. In the Netherlands, the act on euthanasia went into force already on April 1, 2002. This special issue of Ethical Perspectives on ‘Euthanasia in the Low Countries’ offers a forum for critical dialogue on the different aspects of this new legal situation (...) in Belgium and the Netherlands.First, the legal situation will be introduced. In his contribution, Herman Nys makes a careful comparison of both laws. In spite of the fact that Belgium and the Netherlands are the first countries in the world that legalized euthanasia, the differences between the Belgian and Dutch law are fundamental. As Nys indicates, the scope of the Dutch law is more specified since it explicitly includes physician-assisted suicide while it remains unclear whether the Belgian act is also applicable in cases of assisted suicide. There are also fundamental differences regarding the persons regulated by the law, the health condition of the patient, the obligations of the physician with respect to the request and the health status of the patient, and the notification procedure.However, not only are there fundamental differences between Belgium and the Netherlands on the level of the law. Also the public debate and the values underlying the the debate show dissimilarities. In the Netherlands this debate took more than twenty years and the subsequent law on euthanasia reflected an existing medical practice. In Belgium, on the contrary, the parliament came to vote on the euthanasia law after only half a decade of debate. In our contribution , we identify the right to autonomy understood as ‘self-possession’ as the central value in the Belgian debate. Guy Widdershoven asserts that the moral basis of euthanasia in the Netherlands is different. He argues that the Dutch debate — and by now Dutch practice — cannot be reduced to the "principlist canon of autonomy and beneficence". Instead, the values of responsibility, deliberation and care are claimed to be central to Dutch euthanasia practice.In his contribution, Daniel Sulmasy offers an exhaustive analysis of the notion of dignity that constantly arises in the debate on euthanasia. For Christian churches and Catholic healthcare institutions, the recent legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide is at least challenging. Jan Jans describes the way in which the main Christian churches in Belgium and the Netherlands engaged in the debate and reacted to the eventual legalization. Chris Gastmans presents the view of the Flemish Association of Catholic Healthcare Institutions.Law-making with respect to euthanasia is one thing. Bringing the law into practice is somewhat different. The question arises to what extent the new legal situation will bear upon the medical practice. Particularly, the responses of physicians are difficult to assess in advance. Physicians face the dilemma to report or not to report. They can take up their responsibility and report their practices of euthanasia, thereby exposing themselves to critical examination and possibly criminal prosecution. On the other hand, the physician can opt for safety and decide not to report his involvement in one of his patients’ euthanasia. In the latter case, the introduction of new legislation would have missed the mark. To this day, the only available data with regard to physicians’ reactions to an established legal framework wherein euthanasia is legalized come from the Netherlands. In his contribution, Albert Klijn presents the reactions of Dutch physicians to the new legal situation in their country and, particularly, the performance of their duty to report cases of euthanasia. Since the vote on the law in 2000 and the establishment of ‘regional review committees for termination of life on request and assisted suicide’ in 2001, the reports of euthanasia have declined. Klijn considers two possible explanations. On the one hand, there is insecurity about how the newly established regional review committees will evaluate physician' reports. On the other hand, the increased investment in research on palliative care and the availability of palliative sedation are held responsible for the drop in reported cases.This very interesting suggestion by Klijn needs further clarification. Therefore, the meaning of palliative care and the possibility of palliative sedation are elaborated in the contribution of Bert Broeckaert and Rien Janssens.With this special issue on ‘Euthanasia in the Low Countries’ we hope to have answered the numerous requests for further information on the Belgian and Dutch situation. Data, clarification and critical review may shed more light on the development of a practice, which some still consider as non-medical behaviour. This issue may therefore also function as a catalyst for further medical, ethical and legal debate. (shrink)

BackgroundWe describe our experience from a multi-national application of a European Union-funded research-driven paediatric trial (DEEP-2, EudraCT 2012-000353-31; NCT01825512). This paper aims to evaluate the impact of the local and national rules on the trial authorisation process in European and non-European countries. National/local provisions and procedures, number of Ethics Committees and Competent Authorities to be addressed, documentation required, special provisions for the paediatric population, timelines for completing the authorisation process and queries received were collected; compliance with the European provisions were (...) evaluated. Descriptive analysis, Wilcoxon Rank-Sum test and General Linear Model analysis were used to determine factors potentially influencing the timelines. The Cluster Analysis procedure was used to identify homogenous groups of cases.ResultThe authorisation process was completed in 7.7 to 53.8 months in European countries and in 17.1 to 27.1 months in non-European countries. The main factors influencing these timelines were the requests for changes/clarifications in European countries and the different national legislations in non-European countries.ConclusionThis work confirms that the procedures and requirements for the clinical trial application of a paediatric trial are different. In the European Union, the timeframes for submission were generally harmonised but longer. In non-European countries, delays were caused by national dispositions but the entire authorisation process resulted faster with less requests from ECs/cas. The upcoming application of Regulation (EU) 536/2014 is expected to harmonise practices in Europe and possibly outside. Networks on paediatric research acting at international level will be crucial in this effort. (shrink)

This paper comments on Cohen’s “Philosophy with Teeth” (also in this issue), and raises four questions surrounding the relationship between philosophy and psychology, most of which are requests for clarification from Cohen but two of which are more critical in character: Against Cohen’s claim that APPE disavows any intrinsic connection between philosophical counseling and psychology, it is suggested that this still leaves open the pos­sibility of an instrumental connection. And against Cohen’s claim that pure philosophy is “grist for (...) the classroom” or for “stimulating discussions over coffee,” it is maintained that pure philosophy may have more “teeth” than what this suggests. (shrink)

Hany metaethicists have all but abandoned the possibility that ordinary value language has any sort of universal logic. But careful phenomenological reflection indicates that we call something “good” only if we tacitly believe that it is disposed to be “pragmatically attractive” in some way. Conversely, “bad” things must be “pragmatically repellent”. Linguistic and phenomenological evidence supports these observations. Differences in the meanings of diverse value judgments seem to be due to variations in the practical context in which the attraction or (...) repulsion is judged. The fact that we can legitimately request clarification regarding each of five practical dimensions tends to indicate that a common structure underlies all senses in which something can be said “good” or “bad.”. (shrink)

Hany metaethicists have all but abandoned the possibility that ordinary value language has any sort of universal logic. But careful phenomenological reflection indicates that we call something “good” only if we tacitly believe that it is disposed to be “pragmatically attractive” in some way. Conversely, “bad” things must be “pragmatically repellent”. Linguistic and phenomenological evidence supports these observations. Differences in the meanings of diverse value judgments seem to be due to variations in the practical context in which the attraction or (...) repulsion is judged. The fact that we can legitimately request clarification regarding each of five practical dimensions tends to indicate that a common structure underlies all senses in which something can be said “good” or “bad.”. (shrink)

We consider the various criticisms and requests for clarification made by the commentators of our framework for understanding intentional relations. Our response is organized according to the main themes in the target article: general theory, phylogeny, development, and autism. We also add some discussion of further issues, such as simulation and moral theory, that were not addressed in the target article.

Background: Studies have found that children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are more likely to make errors in appropriately producing referring expressions (‘the dog’ vs. ‘the black dog’) than are controls but comprehend them with equal facility. We tested whether this anomaly arises because comprehension studies have focused on manipulating perspective-taking at a ‘generic speaker’ level. Method: We compared 24 autistic eight- to eleven-year-olds with 24 well-matched neuro-typical controls. Children interpreted requests (e.g. ‘Can I have that ball?’) in contexts (...) which would be ambiguous (i.e. because the child can see two balls) if perspective-taking were not utilized. In the interlocutor-specific perspective-taking condition, the target was the particular object which was new for the speaker. Children needed to take into account what the speaker had played with before and the fact that they were now expressing excitement about something new. In two control ‘speaker-generic’ conditions we tested children’s ability to take the visual perspective of the speaker (where any speaker who stood behind a particular barrier would have the same perspective). Results: The autistic group were significantly less likely to select the target and significantly more likely to request clarification in the ‘interlocutor-specific’ condition. Performance in the ‘interlocutor-generic’ (visual) perspective taking conditions did not differ between groups. Conclusion: Autistic children, even those who are not intellectually-impaired, tend to have more difficulty than neuro-typical peers in comprehending referring expressions when this requires understanding that people comment on what is new for them. (shrink)

This article investigates differences in pragmatic abilities between children who have cochlear implants and their hearing peers. Recordings of 10-minute conversations between 10 children with cochlear implants and a hearing peer were transcribed. Conversation analysis provides insights into interactional troubles not evident in broader measures of number of turns, requests for clarification, topic initiation and so on used in earlier studies. How the children go about repair proves of particular interest; other-initiated repair that prompts the speaker to repeat (...) the prior utterance is, not surprisingly, more commonly produced by the children who have cochlear implants. The key contribution of this article, however, is to detail examples where children with cochlear implants choose not to initiate repair of an error made by their hearing friend. The discussion not only highlights the interactional cost of initiating repair, but also demonstrates that not doing repair can cause a breakdown in conversation. (shrink)

In the following comments, I will raise no major objection to Furtak’s main line of argument. My questions are essentially requests for clarification. They focus on three key expressions: first, the “unified” character of emotional agitation and intentionality; second, the unique “mode of cognition” claimed for emotions; and third, the “emotional a priori.”.

In discussions of animal ethics, hypothetical scenarios are often used to try to force the clarification of intuitions about the relative value of human and animal life. Tom Regan requests, for example, that we imagine a man and a dog adrift in a lifeboat while Peter Singer explains why the life of one's child ought to be preferred to that of the family dog in the event of a house fire. I argue that such scenarios are not the (...) usefully abstract analytic tools they purport to be, but indirectly reinforce assumptions that are not only anthropocentric, but also tied to racist, sexist and ethnocentric stereotypes. An analysis of some of the cultural and ethical associations of the notion of self-sacrifice proves especially useful in revealing some of the limitations of certain popular Western approaches to animal ethics. (shrink)

Recruiting minorities into research studies requires special attention, particularly when studies involve “extra-vulnerable” participants with multiple vulnerabilities, e.g., pregnant women, the fetuses/neonates of ethnic minorities, children in refugee camps, or cross-border migrants. This study retrospectively analyzed submissions to the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Tropical Medicine (FTM-EC) in Thailand. Issues related to the process and outcomes of proposal review, and the main issues for which clarification/revision were requested on studies, are discussed extensively.

Intended as an introduction of the phenomenological writings of Pfänder to English-speaking readers, this work contains two major essays and two minor selections by Pfänder, plus an introduction and two appendixes by Spiegelberg. Because of its composition, this book should be classified as a Pfänder's anthology centered around a main essay titled "Motives and Motivation." As reasons for the translation and publishing of this main essay, Spiegelberg mentions first its influence on Ricoeur's phenomenology of the will, and secondly its topical (...) affinity with R. S. Peter's The Concept of Motivation, a work considered by Spiegelberg as capable of restoring the importance of the will in Anglo-American philosophy. The other major essay is, curiously enough, the introduction to a text-book in logic written by Pfänder in response to Husserl's own request. The two essays, though different, are not unrelated; they represent the theoretical and practical sides of the unique phenomenological method of constitution. The presence of these two essays, side by side, in this volume raises in fact the question of Pfänder's own understanding of the theoretical unity of thought and action that is the key to phenomenological subjectivity. A clarification of Pfänder's thought on this unity would certainly help us evaluate his contribution to phenomenology. Spiegelberg himself depicts Pfänder as a reasonable phenomenologist, accurate in analysis and moderate in speculative claims, a sober figure indeed in an environment sometimes seen as prone to intellectual excesses.--A. de L. M. (shrink)

Upon doing something generous for someone with whom you are close, some kind of reciprocity may be appropriate. But it often seems wrong to actually request reciprocity. This chapter explores the wrongness in making these requests, and why they can nevertheless appear appropriate. After considering several explanations for the wrongness at issue (involving, e.g. distinguishing oughts from obligation, the suberogatory, imperfect duties, and gift-giving norms), a novel proposal is advanced. The requests are disrespectful; they express that their agent (...) insufficiently trusts the hearer to recognize their own reasons to reciprocate, and the close relationship between them morally requires this kind of trust. This proposal is articulated and situated in the recent discussion of the normativity of requests. The chapter concludes by explaining how these requests may appear appropriate. Agents in these relationships often have standing to make requests, though the standing is lacking in these particular cases. (shrink)

I ask you to X. You now have a reason to X. My request gave you a reason. How? One unpopular theory is the epistemic account, according to which requests do not create any new reasons but instead simply reveal information. For instance, my request that you X reveals that I desire that you X, and my desire gives you a reason to X. Peter Schaber has recently attacked both the epistemic account and other theories of the reason-giving force (...) of requests. Schaber defends a new theory of the reason-giving force of requests according to which request give reasons because it is valuable for requesters and requestees that requests have this power. In this paper I argue that Schaber's attack on the epistemic account fails, and that his own theory ought to be rejected because it faces compelling objections. (shrink)